Moving slowly through the UK countryside

Tag Archives: sun

Two posts today as I’ve lapsed a bit. [Or maybe not – the first one, about blue potatoes, has disappeared twice – and has now reappeared – maybe I had too many windows open at once and confused it?]

Today a half-marathon went right past my front door, so I went out to cheer them on. We’re about 3/4 of the way round, just before a big hill towards the end. It was hot, hot, hot, and I was very glad I wasn’t involved in it (though a teensy-weensy bit of me did think maybe, one day – if it wasn’t so hot…) Even a 5k would have been really tough. I had to keep moving into the shade just standing watching.

When about half of them had gone past, a neighbour commented that someone further through the village had a hosepipe out, so the runners could run through the spray. I’d been thinking about doing that anyway, as I remembered reading about a 5k run in America that some friends on the NHS couch to 5k site had done, and how they’d found it really helpful. (I’d put a link to NHS c25k, but the site has just had an ‘upgrade’ and has been very temperamental and today appears to not be working at all.)

So, out came the hosepipe, and the runners seemed very happy to see it. Several slowed down to savour it all the more! The garden got well watered in gaps between runners. I was a bit wary about distracting motorists, or distracting runners into the path of vehicles, so was very careful (I had my H&S head on all the time!) One driver in a very shiny posh red car clearly didn’t want his car to have water droplets on it, and slowed down pointedly, with a very grumpy expression. Tempting to soak him, but I resisted it. 😀

The roses are wonderful at the moment, so here are a few of them, in the ‘meadow’ corner of the garden (hence long messy grass…)